Chip maker Intel, one of Ireland's largest multi-national employers, has forecast a strong finish to the year after reporting better than expected results for the third quarter.
Its third-quarter net profit was $2.96 billion, or 52 cents a share, compared with $1.86 billion a year earlier. That was slightly higher than the 50 cents per share expected by analysts.
Revenue in the three month to September 25 was $11.1 billion, slightly higher than expected. Intel had warned in August about weak consumer demand for personal computers.
But in its latest results, the company forecast strong fourth-quarter sales and margins as resilient demand from emerging markets and companies offsets weak consumer spending.
Intel's forecast boosted hopes that higher-end spending on servers or data centres may help offset the loss of computer sales to a booming tablet computer market.
Chief executive Paul Otellini also told that early demand for Sandy Bridge - its next-generation chip combining central processing and graphical functions - was much greater than originally anticipated.
The world's largest chip maker forecast revenue of $11 billion to $11.8 billion in the final three months of 2010, in line with analysts' expectations.
'We'll see the consumer market growing but likely a little less than you'd normally expect. I attribute that to consumers pulling back a little bit based on economic uncertainty,' Intel finance chief Stacy Smith told Reuters.
